by Gary Corby
It’s sometimes said that the closest modern equivalent to garos is an Asian fish sauce called nuoc mam. For all I know, it might even be true.
Modern readers expect to find fenugreek on their pizzas and in their curries. The Greeks put it in their wine. Fenugreek means, literally, “Greek hay.” The Greeks put 1 percent to 2 percent seawater in their wine for a very practical reason: in a world without sulphur, salt makes the next best preservative.
Greeks always watered down their wine. To drink wine neat was the mark of the worst sort of barbarian. The ratios Nico gives during the symposium are correct; normal everyday drinking called for three parts water to one of wine.
* * *
Anaxagoras was the world’s first professional philosopher, in the sense that Pericles paid for his upkeep in return for the wisdom of his thoughts. Historians of philosophy have long wondered whether Anaxagoras might have taught the young Socrates, but generally discount the idea because of the big difference in their ages. I’m glad that with this book we can finally reveal the truth of the matter.
Speaking of matter, the theory of matter that Anaxagoras espouses at the symposium is the beginning of atomic theory, and it happened in Athens, 2,500 years ago. The Greeks were much exercised by the question: if things were made of tiny particles, then what moved the particles? The answer of Anaxagoras was something he called Mind. The Greek word for mind is nous, which remains a word in English. The Mind proposed by Anaxagoras was a cosmic intelligence that decided what was to happen. In other words, a God. In these days when science and religion are so often at loggerheads, it’s ironic that the world’s first atomic theory was used to prove that a God existed.
The greatest philosopher of the age was Heraclitus of Ephesus. You might never have heard of him before, but you’ve certainly heard his most famous thought: “You cannot step twice into the same river.” By which he meant that nothing ever stays the same; everything flows and changes.
Heraclitus was descended from the ancient kings of Ephesus, and himself was offered the crown. He turned it down, because to be a philosopher walking the hills of Ephesus stark naked and eating nothing but grass was so much more cool. Heraclitus caught dropsy, probably from eating the grass, which he then tried to cure by coating himself in cow poo and lying in the sun. You can guess how well this turned out. He was buried in the middle of the agora of Ephesus, where Nico trips over his funeral stone.
Heraclitus donated the one and only copy of the book he wrote to the Artemision, where people came from far and wide to read it and make copies. The small side temple that contains the Book of Heraclitus is my invention, but there must have been a keeper of the book.
* * *
Salaminia was the Air Force One of the ancient world. She really did exist, a special trireme fitted with only the best equipment, crewed only by citizens, and reserved for only the most delicate missions.
Most people these days know of Ephesus from the Bible. Think Paul’s Epistles to the Ephesians. Those with a classical bent will know of Ephesus as home to one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World: the Temple of Artemis. The commercial agora at Ephesus, which Nico visits, is considered by some to be the world’s first stock market.
Ephesus was abandoned in medieval times because silt built up in the harbor. Today, the ruins of Ephesus are many miles inland. The ruins are absolutely magnificent and a must-see if you’re in the area. The city layout is precisely as Nico describes it. The brothel on Marble Road into which he blunders is real and can be walked through.
Artemis of Ephesus was a mother goddess, her cult statue covered in breasts, much to Nico’s appreciation, whereas the Artemis of Athens was the Huntress.
Diotima has her facts right (as usual) when she describes the history of the Artemision, but for some slight errors caused by the Greeks not knowing their past as well as we know it today. There was a temple on the site of the Artemision dating back at least to the Bronze Age, no doubt rebuilt many times. The Amazons were indeed believed to have worshipped there before the fall of Troy.
All Greek temples had sanctuaries in much the same way as medieval cathedrals. The sanctuary of the Artemision of Ephesus was considered particularly strong, and so important that even the Great King of the Persians respected it. The belief in the sanctuary was such that at an earlier date during a siege, the Ephesians tried to save themselves by chaining the city to the temple.
The Artemision is one of the temples associated with sacred prostitution by both the ancient Greek travel writer Pausanias and by the Bible. The claim is contentious, and for my money, it’s wrong. The evidence simply isn’t there, and more to the point, how could the commercial brothel on Marble Road have done the thriving business it obviously did, if there was ecumenically approved nookie up at the temple?
A more probable claim is that the Artemision was served by eunuchs. The Greeks were about as uncomfortable with eunuchy as modern men, but Ephesus lies in Asia Minor where a large non-Hellene population had lived since prehistoric times, and the Asian peoples of the area were definitely pro-eunuch. The Persians regularly used eunuch slaves. Strabo says point-blank there were eunuchs at the Artemision and that they were called the Megabyzoi. I’ve accepted the Megabyzoi as true and the temple prostitutes as false. As with all historical interpretation, your mileage may vary.
* * *
Brion comes to a very sticky end, but one by no means unusual for the times. Impalement was a common method of state execution across the Middle East. The Hittites, Assyrians, Egyptians, and Persians all practiced it, although never the Greeks. There are even ancient “decorations” that show it done. The British Museum has a frieze that exhibits Assyrians impaling people.
Whiney, bleeding heart, soft-on-crime liberals eventually complained that anal impalement was too cruel. (I can’t imagine why.) So they introduced the soft option of crucifixion. Crucifixion was an instant hit and replaced anal impalement altogether, until it was revived centuries later by that well-known traditionalist, Vlad the Impaler. Vlad is immortalized in popular culture as the inspiration for Count Dracula.
* * *
The King’s Messengers, from whom Nico’s horse, Ajax, was stolen, was a real organization. The King’s Messengers are mentioned in Herodotus’ The Histories (book VIII, section 98, if you’re interested).
No mortal thing travels faster than these Persian couriers. The whole idea is a Persian invention, and works like this: riders are stationed along the road, equal in number to the number of days the journey takes—a man and a horse for each day. Nothing stops these couriers from covering their allotted stage in the quickest possible time—neither snow, rain, heat, nor darkness. The first, at the end of his stage, passes his dispatch to the second, the second to the third, and so on down the line …
U.S. readers might have noticed something familiar in the quote from Herodotus. The unofficial creed of the U.S. Postal Service is “Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.” That’s right. The U.S. Postal Service creed comes straight from the King’s Messengers of the Persian Empire.
* * *
Nico and Diotima see many strange things in Asia Minor, but perhaps the strangest are glass and silk. A Persian drinking horn fashioned out of glass has been found that dates to this period. It is perfectly possible that Themistocles, as a favored friend of the Great King, might have received one as a gift. The idea of using glass to make windows lies far in the future, for the present it’s enough of a shock that there’s a solid material you can see through.
The Silk Road is open at this very early date. Silk has reached the Persian lands, but probably no farther. The daughters of Themistocles, a wealthy and powerful man who has recently been at the Persian Court in Susa, were in a position to bring bolts of silk with them when he moved to Magnesia. Diotima acquires some silk dresses at the end of the book, her just reward for the perils she faced. When she returns to Athens she’ll
be the envy of every woman. In the coming century a few Athenian women with wealthy husbands will be able to afford the new wonder material.
* * *
In the unlikely event that this book is ever assigned as a school text, I’ll save the poor student a lot of time by telling you now that the underlying theme is the nature of loyalty. When Nicolaos says that loyalty is first to oneself, then one’s family, and lastly to one’s city, he gives the standard Greek view.
The Greeks had no concept of national loyalty as we know it. None at all. Yet despite that the Greeks, and the Athenians in particular, are the people we have to thank for our underlying modern political philosophy. The Athenians believed, overwhelmingly, in the importance and priority of individual freedom. They took this view to its logical conclusion.
The Persians believed, overwhelmingly, in the importance and priority of the state and the need to maintain social order. In the Persian system the Great King ruled and every other man was his slave, his position defined in a strict hierarchy.
* * *
The Greek concept of moral responsibility was quite different to ours. When the children of Themistocles decide to arrange the death of their father, they tread a fine but not impossible moral line. The children make known to the Athenians certain facts about their father, they have not actually tried to kill him. If the Athenians send an assassin as a result of their letter, well, that was the decision of the Athenians, not the children.
Their logic is precisely the same doublethink as applied throughout Greece to the exposure of babies. The Greeks, with their terrible population pressure and scarce resources, exposed newborn babies if the family hadn’t enough food to go around. Indeed, in the book, the cloth seller from Phrygia has precisely this problem.
To the Greek mind, abandoning a baby avoided blood guilt. But under no circumstances would the father of the house kill the baby himself. That would have been murder! To them the moral distinction was clear. The children of Themistocles make full use of it.
There is no historical record of the children of Themistocles attempting to harm him in any way. My story traduces a family that in all probability was happy and loving. The irregular paternity of Asia is also my own invention. If the living descendants could be identified—and there must surely be some considering how many children Themistocles had—then I suppose they could sue me for defamation.
The incestuous marriage of Mnesiptolema and Archeptolis, however, is real. The Greeks weren’t too fussed about such things—unions between cousins and uncle-daughter marriages happened—but it seems odd that a man of Themistocles’ position would have allowed a brother-sister marriage without an overriding reason. So I invented a reason.
The Greek libido was up for almost any combination of sexual athletics you care to think of—some of the pottery decoration of the time has to be seen to be believed—but I’ve never come across a single reference to Greeks practicing sexual bondage and discipline, I suppose because such a thing would have been considered demeaning to the man. It was therefore the only sexual activity I could think of which Mnesiptolema and Archeptolis might conceivably have cause to be ashamed (other than sneaking a donkey into the room, but there are practicalities to be considered).
* * *
Secret writing was very much a part of Greek political plots. The modern term for it—steganography—is precisely the ancient Greek word and means literally secret writing. The story of the slave with a message tattooed on his scalp, and the story of Demeratos sending a war warning scratched into the backing board of a wax tablet, both appear in Herodotus. The skytale that Nico uses, with a leather strip wrapped about a rod and written on lengthways, was a common Greek device.
The fact that the Greeks were so sophisticated in such things speaks volumes about their tendency to backstab, plot, and conspire. It’s all good stuff if you happen to be a writer of Classical Greek mysteries.
* * *
Barzanes works for the Eyes and Ears of the King. It sounds like something from high fantasy, but I promise the Eyes and Ears of the King was a for-real organization, and not one you would want to mess with.
The Persian social structure was very hierarchical. At the top was the Great King. Directly below him were the satraps, chosen almost always from Persian nobility. Each satrap ruled a satrapy, being a province, of which there were many. Each satrap in turn had many officers in his province.
Everyone lived within the social hierarchy, obeying the next guy up the line, except for the Eyes and Ears. If you were a member of this elite organization, then your job was to keep an eye on how the empire was ticking over, and report directly to the Great King, bypassing the entire system. Most important of all, the local satrap had no power over you. This little detail is hugely important to the story: Themistocles had no power to control Barzanes, or what he might discover.
The Eyes and Ears of the King kept an eye on what the local satraps were up to, how they managed the army, and put down rebellions. They watched how tribute was collected from client states to make sure it all made its way to the king’s coffers. (Satraps who enriched themselves were liable to rebel.) If the taxation didn’t add up, the Eyes and Ears investigated to find out who was diddling the accounts. If a satrap broke the law, the Eyes and Ears reported the crime to the Great King.
The Eyes and Ears of the King was, in essence, the Persian FBI.
* * *
Greek and Old Persian was wildly different, and whenever the Greeks tried to say a Persian name they mangled it horribly. Because our histories were written by Greeks, we know all these great Persian men by their mangled but not their real names.
The Great King of the Persians at the time of this story was Artaxerxes (pronounced ART-A-ZERK-SEEZ), or at least that’s what the Greeks called him. His real name was Artakhshaça. The father of Artaxerxes was Xerxes (ZERK-SEEZ). It was Xerxes who invaded Greece, so it’s not surprising he gets really bad press from all ancient historians. His real name was Khshayarsha.
Many Greeks could speak Persian, especially those in Ionia, but the name mangling suggests most of them spoke it with an atrocious accent. So when Nico says the name of his adversary is Barzanes, that’s him mangling a quite different name.
* * *
The story of the rich and powerful tyrant Polycrates, and his terrible death in Magnesia at the hands of Oroetes, is true and can be found in Herodotus. The lost treasure is my own addition.
The Maeander River, which plays such a central role in the mystery, is the selfsame river which gives us the English verb to meander. The Maeander River does indeed meander as Cleophantus describes to Nico.
* * *
The betrothal of the Greek Nicomache to the Persian Barzanes was by no means unusual. What might be slightly controversial is that Barzanes was a Zoroastrian. Modern Zoroastrians believe that at no time have their people married outside their faith.
Zoroastrianism was the state religion of the kings of Persia. It’s a religion that has practicing members to this day. Zoroastrianism was the first dualistic religion in history, which is to say, there are good and evil spiritual forces that oppose each other in an eternal struggle. Men and women should support the good against the bad.
Ahura Mazda is the Good God of the Zoroastrians, and his name means Wise Lord. He is attended by many good spirits, or angels, the only one of which I mention is Mithra. Mithra went on to become the basis of his own religion, which at its height in Roman times was bigger than Christianity.
Ahriman opposes Ahura Mazda, with the help of evil spirits called the daevas. It is no coincidence that daeva sounds like the Hindu deva and the Christian devil. Nor is it likely to be a coincidence that in Zoroastrianism there is a judgment of the soul, which results in going to either a hellish sea of molten metal, or to a paradise.
The Zoroastrian prayers and practices were not written down until some time in the seventh century AD, more than a thousand years after this story. I am indebted to Tehmina Goskar, a medieva
l historian who also happens to be a member of the Zoroastrian faith, for her advice on early Zoroastrianism. Any errors in the text are certainly mine.
The idea of supporting a good god against an evil one seems very natural to the modern Christian mind-set, but it was 100 percent utterly foreign to the Greek worldview, for whom the gods were forces of nature to be placated. It’s my personal belief that the wide gap between Persian and Greek morality, as expressed by their religions, was one of the reasons these two great peoples never managed to get along.
* * *
The last half of the book takes place in Magnesia-on-the-Maeander. Incredibly, there were three cities named Magnesia within walking distance of one another. Some genius thought this was a great idea.
The first was Magnesia-on-the-Sipylum, which has nothing to do with this story. The second was Magnesia-on-the-Maeander, where the story takes place.
Our Magnesia, the one on the Maeander, was moved wholesale by the citizens to somewhere up the road in about 399 BC, which was more than sixty years after Themistocles died. That’s the third Magnesia.
Diodorus Siculus says, from the Loeb Library edition of his book:
“Thibron [a Spartan general with an army in 399 BC] … came to Magnesia.… And since the city was unwalled … he transferred it to a neighboring hill which men call Thorax.”
The third Magnesia has known ruins. The Magnesia of this book is a genuine Lost City, though with all the available clues to its whereabouts I don’t imagine it would stay lost for long if someone put their mind and money to finding it. The one point from Diodorus Siculus of importance to the book is the observation that our Magnesia didn’t have a defensive wall, unlike virtually every other city of its time. This is why Araxes and his gang were able to come and go unhindered.